


Gentle Touches

by sakumiyas (orphan_account), sutekisauce



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Mutants, M/M, Mild Gore, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-11 23:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15326325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sakumiyas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sutekisauce/pseuds/sutekisauce
Summary: Snarky mechanic Nino meets a masochistic and suicidal mutant, Sho in a post-nuclear apocalypse society. Nino ends up "babysitting" Sho and prevent him from trying to commit suicide and harm himself excessively. Throughout their experiences, Nino also knew more about the reasons behind Sho’s odd, harmful behaviour. On the other hand, Sho developed an attraction to Nino, especially with his tiny, delicate hands.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to lynsagiura72 on twitter for helping me with this fic! I literally have 0 experience in doing fics til now so I hope someone would like it. Here it goes.

The sky was grey, just like every other day. It had been like that since the nuclear incident sparked. No one was sure how much time had passed, but the society had changed drastically.

In order to survive under the severe radiation, most humans became desperate and replaced their body parts with cybernetic parts. It was safe to say that the society were dominated by cyborgs. Among all these cyborgs, there were still a scarce amount of humans, who refused to give in the bodies for technological advances. Then, there were humans that were affected by radiation in a more severe way than others. Abnormalities started to emerge from their bodies. Throughout the years, such mutation developed into more complex forms, and a new kind of humans, the mutants appeared in the society.

For long enough, mutants were seen as “less than human”. They were looked down upon by most people, some even ended up being the cyborgs’ toy. Most of them were held captive, which the cyborgs did unthinkable deeds to experiment on their abilities.

Sho was one of them.

His routine was always the same. He woke up, and receive deep cuts from his arms and legs. Blood oozed out, which formed into tiny balls. Sometimes it stayed in shape. Sometimes it simply fell from the wound. Regardless, getting cuts every single day was agonizing.

Sho did not count how much he had screamed. How much he had cried.

Sometimes, Sho would purposefully cut open his healing wounds again. He felt a rush of fear and fascination, mostly fear when seeing his own blood coming out again. In an attempt to stop himself from doing that, Sho bandaged his old wounds so he would not develop this odd urge to cut them open again. That small roll of white bandages became his only friend.

On a quiet night, Sho was going to sleep, with tears still forming on the corner of his eyes. His leg hurt pretty badly. It was one of these days again. The next day would be the same, he thought.

However, a note slid from the crack of his cell door.

“Open the cell door.”

Sho, skeptical of this note, opened the door anyways. No one was standing there, but there was another note on the floor. The handwriting was rather neat on that note.

“Look in front of you. Then sprint. Don’t look back.”

Why did he not notice that the wall would had a secret back door? You were such an idiot, Sho. Anyways, that was awfully convenient. The person who designed this place must’ve been a real genius.

Just as the note wrote, Sho ran, with his friend held firmly. He did not want to suffer anymore. He did not want to become someone’s toy anymore.

He ran and ran and ran, his hand never letting go of his friend. Bandages kept falling off his body, with only the one on his right hand and left eye remain attached.

His feet hurt. The drags on his body could not defend him from the cool climate. It wasn’t called a nuclear winter for nothing.

 _Sho, oh Sho, where would you end up? Would you be able to survive this?_  


.

 

.

 

.

“Sunlight. Haven’t seen this for a long time.”

A boy with messy black hair and delicate brown eyes was gathering up food and supplies for himself. For a rare instance, a weak ray of sunlight reflected from the skies to his eyes. He adjusted the goggles on his head and let out a sigh.

With a box full of items, he slowly made his way to an underground tunnel, where his workshop was located. Fitted with a table, a toolbox and two computers, it was a place where he used his knowledge as a mechanic and did repairs for cyborgs.

Everything was the same in the workshop, but it was not the case today.

The boy spotted another boy, lying unconscious on the floor, with drags over his body and bandages over his hand. A roll of white bandages rolled around the floor, making a mess.

“You’re making a mess,” the boy sighed.

Curious about the origin of this unconscious individual, the boy dragged the body for some testing. The results indicated that the body contained no cybernetic parts, and obscure activity in his blood. Fascinated, the boy extracted some blood from the body with a syringe.

“It looks like it’s boiling,” the boy said to himself.

What followed was the syringe getting hotter and hotter, to the point that it was too much for him to handle. He threw the syringe on the ground, breaking it, blood splattered on the ground. However, this did not stop the blood from moving vigorously.

Suddenly, there was a loud banging noise from behind.

He woke up.

Sho woke up, on an operation table, smashing one of the computers nearby out of fear. A shot of blood was the factor contributing to the destruction of the computer.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_ Sho's Account _

My brain was all jumbled up. For one instance, I was running away from the facility with my life on stake. For another instance, my body felt slightly numb, and the air started to get warmer.

As my body regained consciousness, I opened my eyes. In front of me were a surprising amount of tools, computers and food wrappings. Then there was me, restrained by the arms, on some sort of operation table.

No, it couldn’t be. No... please no...

Am I... being experimented on again?

Fear took over my body, and the open wounds on my arms did not react well with the situation either. A stream of blood shot out from my wound and smashed something nearby.

“What the f-”

Someone came rushing by. It was a boy.

“Great. You smashed my computer into half.”

I glanced at the broken object. It was, indeed, a computer. It was being thoroughly cut in half, almost in perfect symmetry.

The boy only glared at me in disbelief.

“W-What are you doing to my body?” I yelled out.

I did not intend to scream that loudly, but I was still in shock. The boy looked like he wanted to smack me on the face. Well, it’s literally my fault, I deserve a smack on my face, but my brain just can’t think straight in this situation.

“Only cyborgs ever came to my workshop. What does a mutant like you want from me?”

“I only wanted a place to take shelter, and probably hang myself somewhere in this tunnel.”

The latter came out of nowhere, but I said it very softly, hopefully that he would not be able to hear it.

“A shelter? Who the fuck thinks a tunnel would be a good place to hide?” He sighed.

It seemed like he did not listen to what I said...

“You, I suppose? You did say that this is your workshop,” I replied.

He glared at me once again, but this time with a softer look in his eyes.

“Well, I don’t want you here,” he said with a stoic tone.

This boy, standing in front of me had messy jet black hair, which was even more of a disaster with the goggles on his head. His clothing were of peculiar choices, but it looked comfortable nonetheless. My eyes averted to his hands. Underneath these long sleeves were a pair of tiny, delicate hands. They don’t even look like a mechanic’s hands. I wasn’t sure if his hands would be smooth or rough to touch, but at least it looked better than mine. My hands were a never ending canvas of self-inflicted wounds.

Anyways, what was I negotiating him with? Oh yes, I wanted to stay in this tunnel.

“Is that so?” I said, “I’ll leave.”

I was still on the table, restrained.

“Yes, please.” The boy pressed a button, in which my arm restraints were loosened. I slowly stood up, and picked up the roll of bandages that were laying on the floor. I carefully wrapped bandages over the wounds he inflicted on my arm.

Then, I decided to ask him something.

“Can I borrow one of your wires?” I asked boldly.

“What for? Aren’t you going to leave?” He asked back, clearly dissatisfied.

I gulped.

“I just wanted to kill someone that’s not worthy to live,” I put it vaguely.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, go ahead.” he said. “But I’ll make sure to kill you first,” he smirks.

“It’s not you whom I’m going to kill. But I appreciate your help.”

“...The fuck? You want me to kill you?”

“I-I’ll do it myself! Y-you don’t need to stain your hands!”

Back then, when I was with the cyborgs, I tried numerous ways for the easy way out. However, they were too keen on keeping me alive. Moreover, I had a high healing factor, which meant even massive blood loss would not be able to kill me.

Perhaps, now that I have escaped, I can truly end this.

“Well, you’ll get nothing for killing yourself, for your information.”

“It doesn’t matter! Mutants are less than humans after all. It doesn’t matter if we...die,” I said, trying not to cry. 

“If you’re really ‘less than human’, you would not have the emotional capacity to fear the action of committing suicide,” He said, his tone being more concerning than cocky. “I’ve seen a lot of cyborgs that would never hesitate to injure or kill anyone. They might call mutants ‘less than human’, but in reality, they’re the one who lacks emotions and some things that makes a human, human, I can only say.”

I was already crying. He must have cringed at this big crybaby.

“You must’ve despised those cyborgs so badly.”

How did he know this? 

“In case you asked, your face tells everything, you know.”

Was I that obvious? Anyways, I failed to kill myself because I was scared. How did a coward like me survived that long?

I saw his facial expression changed a little.

“You’d probably die if you step foot outside again. Don’t leave the tunnel.”

“T-Thank you very much!”

I immediately dropped the wire I was holding and gave this boy a formal bow.

“What’s your name?”

“I-It’s Sho.”

“Well, Sho, I’ll let you stay for now, but if you don’t want me to kick you out, you’ll have to obey my rules. That includes no item breaking and no intervention when I’m working. I’m Ninomiya, by the way.”

“I’ll try not to let my blood spazz out of nowhere...”

I quickly wrapped most of my forearms and hands in bandages. Ninomiya could only look at me in disappointment.

“By the way, can I call you Nino? Ninomiya’s too long,” I asked.

“Whatever you think it’s okay. I don’t care,” Nino replied, then turned his head away from me and started cleaning up.

Staring at his back, I could see he take his work seriously. Also, that pair of hands, those beautiful hands, became the part of him I was focusing on again.

This was the first day I met Nino, and was captivated by his tiny, delicate hands and stubby fingers. Regardless, his hands were a piece of artwork, fully juxtapositioning the terrors of a pair of hands full of cuts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @lynsagiura72 on twitter for helping me with this fic once again! Actually, she's my beta for this fic LOL.  
> I'm planning to do the chapters in a roundabout system of switching from sho's account to nino's account. well, chapter 3 will be out soon!


End file.
